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MAY YOUR MOST LOVED BANDS FAIL YOU BEFORE YOUR FAVOURITE JACKET DOEShttps://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/may-your-most-loved-bands-fail-you-before-your-favourite-jacket-does/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/may-your-most-loved-bands-fail-you-before-your-favourite-jacket-does/#respondSun, 26 Nov 2017 21:51:26 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=5138]]>My leather jacket is eleven years old and still a staple of my look. It has not grown too small. A obvious and distinct piece of luck that is not taken for granted. I actually wanted a jacket more like a biker jacket , all my pop punk friends had them. They purchased them from the vic markets and I was so filled with envy every time we would go to a concert together at The Arthouse or The Tote to see bands like Mach Pelican, Guitar Wolf, The Queers, No Use For A Name, HBLOCK 101and bands formed by friends of friends who I don’t know anymore.

You could even get the Black biker leather jackets for cheaper if you went to the market as everyone was closing up for the day. You could haggle. Unfortunately the jackets were all made for people who had a body type that was taller and meatier than a pre teen with boobs. It was not only the fact that the biker jackets did not fit me, it was also the fact that even if I could have haggled near closing, I still would not be able to afford one. The desire for one burned inside of me. I felt that if I had one on my shoulders it would show that I loved The Ramones and Sex Pistols and was no longer the naive little girl from the country. Just try and call me cute now, schmuck, my jacket would snarl at everyone I walked past.

Trawling as many op shops as I could, yielded no success. It was very disheartening. My beloved black leather belt with the silver studs needed its best friend. The studded belt had been purchased over many weeks on lay by at a goth and punk store that existed in Ballarat where I went to uni in 2002. The belt was a made to measure one and had taken weeks to be made as the kind goth girl who ran the store told me that the punk who made them had an an erratic work ethic. When it arrived and I tried it on with a pair of black shorts I was in love and sad it could not be taken back home then and there.

I would have had to have waited even longer had it not been for the kindness of my punk friend and crush who paid the out standing fifteen dollars that I had left to pay. He grew impatient with me as he stood at the store’s counter watching me count out my coins to pay what I could afford which was five dollars. I felt so grateful and embarrassed. Grateful that my hot friend cared enough to help me out and embarrassed because I was so much less financially secure than him and many others. I was happy to live on toast in oder to eventually have that belt. Priorities!

Four years later it finally happens. I do not suddenly grow into a normal sized woman who can buy reduced price leather jackets from The Vik Markets. It is four years later and I have disposeable income from being an emergency teacher. One Saturday morning in June I wake up my boyfriend with exciting explaining of my urgent mission. We get the Broadmeadows train from Kensington station and go to the place in the city with all the leather goods like jackets and belts and bags that are not very punk. It is there that an old Italian man measures my arms and inner arm and bust with a tape measure and a silent look of determination. My boyfriend stands and watches like a six foot two dark haired statue.

The level of excitement of this impending wardrobe addition had not been experienced since my studded belt. The likes of which exceeded the night I met my then boyfriend. I did not tell him this as we sat in a train taking us home. On the train he mentioned why he had been watching the old man measure me so closely. He wanted to see if the old man spent too long measuring me bust area. ‘’The man is a professional.’’ I say with indignation. ‘’His passion is making well fitted leather jackets, not creeping on perfect breasts.’’

Two weeks later I returned to the store with the second half of the payment in cold hard cash fresh from an ATM. As soon as the old man helped me into the black leather jacket and I felt my arms slip into the black satin lining, it was all over I was in love. I stood in front of the full length mirror and stared at the person staring back with a big goofy grin on their face. The love was wrapped up in how this item made me feel, deep inside my guts. That jacket made me feel like a grown up, tough and capeable and sexy. Not the kind of sexy that was comprised of an invisible male gaze. This sexy was the kind that I felt in my own mind regardless of any man regardless of how my boyfriend felt about it. When I turned to him and grinned I did not ask him what he thought. I simply said. ‘’I fucking love this.’’

Photo taken in my sister’s bedroom by annoyed but helpful teen aged sister while I was a fill in english teacher at her regional Victoria high school for two weeks in 2007. ”Hey, Miss! Where’d you park your Harley?”

There was an article published on the satirical website The Onion in 2012 that explained how the ownership of a cool leather jacket proves to be more rewarding than having kids. Many friends shared it with me and I was touched. That they read it and thought of me. At the age I got my leather jacket my sister would be married with two kids and not own a leather jacket. Who is happier you may wonder. It really comes down too perception. I don’t have children and must attest that the ownership of my jacket feels pretty rewarding. Also it is very apparent that the up keep of my leather jacket is far cheaper than keeping a child alive. You can get these leather wipes from the supermarket for under four dollars. These cheap and cheerful wonder wipes give your old leather jacket a whole new lease on life. As the oldest of five children I can be sure that the upkeep of all of us was a great deal more expensive and arguably rewarding. ( my parents are adamant that we were all very rewarding, thanks mum and dad!) I am sure there are people who have kids and have a cool leather jacket. This seems astounding to me in today’s current economical climate. Where working a full time job no longer ensures you have disposable income child free or not.

Wearing that jacket made me embody the swagger of Brodie Dahl, Alisson Mossheart and Viv Albertine, Marky Ramone and Polly Styrene, and one of the members of a little known Melbourne punk band The Spazzys. The jacket had a great secure silver zip and a pocket on either side that I could shove my fists into as I walked around town on winter days. There was only one thing missing and that was band badges on the lapels. I wanted to add band badges from live gigs I attended but until then I needed some to tied me over until then. ‘’Wont Badges ruin the leather?’’ My boyfriend asked. ‘’That is an expensive jacket.’’ I rolled my eyes at him as we looked at the badges in Off Ya Tree at Highpoint Shopping Centre. He did not get punk at all. What was the point of something if you couldn’t stick a pin through it? The first badges that pierced the flesh of my fresh leather jacket were a music trifecta: Sex Pistols, Pixies and Ramones. There was also a badge I got for free after buying a black t shirt with a dead raven motif on the front. The raven had a trickle of blood coming out of its mouth. The badge said BERSERK on it.

As I write this I have the beloved jacket nearby on the couch. It is too hot to wear it. Every summer is so sad and less punk without it wrapped around my narrow shoulders. I look at this item of clothing with deep affection, still kicking against the pricks with me after all these years. There are little but noticeable differences, The satin lining is coming undone, the cuffs are wearing away. The badges have had a feminist metamorphosis. The Ramones, Pixies and BERSERK badges remain. They now have badge sisters in the form of a badge imploring you to Support Women Writers, a yellow badge from a Melbourne band called Shrimp Witch, showing an illustration of a woman pissing on the ground while standing. There is a badge made by a friend who has a recycled clothing label called CRAZY UGLY, the badge says We All Want Things and there is a tiny skull accompanying the words, I love it. There is also a badge from a band I saw twice with the boyfriend whose love did not last as long as my jacket. The band called The Matches a pop punk outfit from Oregon USA. I had a huge crush on the lead singer. Listening to them now I notice a few lyrics that don’t sit well like when Sean sings about how if a girl says she’s seventeen he has to say ‘your too old for me’’ or when he sings the song called Say Eighteen. I always just interpreted that as being about women like me in their early twenties who look illegally young but aren’t. Like how my boyfriend at the time got treated like he was a creep at certain venues even though I was actually 23 and an innocent school girl at all. My boyfriend was not a predator he I was just very short and small. Even when wearing my leather jacket.

Now I am not so sure about The Matches. I quickly do a search on the internet about the band members of the band and feel a little relieved when I find nothing. My theory could be true. I met a girl at a Matches gig that I attended with boyfriend number one and she had many stories of her and her boyfriend meeting the band and them all being super nice. For now the badge stays on my jacket. It is on parole. While other emo and pop punk bands have been relegated to the ranks of a life sentence of avoidance and heart wrenching disappointment at their unbecoming and predatory behavior around underage girls who did nothing wrong except love their music.

The NO badge on my jacket was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago. A cheeky nod to my readiness to share what I disagree with. I took it off during the whole terrible same sex marriage plebiscite because I did not want the badge to be associated with the heartless and conservative no voters. Now that that is over, the badge is back on as there is no end of things going on that warrant my own personal and wearable expression of no. The horrible treatment of the men on Manus Island, the constant horrendous treatment of our very own indigenous people, Men’s rights activists, white supremacist taste and white washing of history and so on and so forth into infinity. No to everything that lacks inclusivity, love and empathy. No to caring what most men think more than what I think and feel.

The boyfriend left, The lead singer of Brand New turned out to be a creep but the leather jacket stayed and never betrayed. It hugged my torso and protected me from the lonely winters in Melbourne. It kept me warm and dry at Green Man festival in Wales where I drank so much cider from a friendly British guy that I vomited before lunchtime. Vomit is very easy to clean off a leather jacket. It kept me company while I, dressed as a Real life Emily The Strange, french kissed a complete stranger on Halloween night at Camden’s Chalk Farm.

One day while working at a school holiday program I let a ten year old girl try my jacket on. It fit her very well and she ran around the playground gleefully shouting, ‘’Look at me! I’m a punk!’’ I laugh at her exuberance and after a few attempts I finally convince my wannabe doppelganger to hand the jacket back. Gold star to me: for being such a valuable influence on impressionable young girl minds.

If you divide the cost of my leather jacket by how many years I have had it and loved it, the jacket has cost me about forty five dollars a year over eleven years. I still have the studded belt as well. And the friend I had a crush on who helped me pay for it? We no longer speak and I deleted him as a friend on social media, not from my mind. The beloved jacket didn’t go the way of MySpace. I wish I had kept hand written copies of all the bad break up poetry I shared on my MySpace page and the very emo photos of myself with a lot of black eye liner on, wearing the leather jacket while holding a giant pink stuffed horse that belonged to my sister. I remember one poem describing how I hoped my ex and his new girlfriend died in a plane crash while flying to their japan holiday destination. I wrote in anguish of how while drowning in the ocean there would be no mermaids or friendly sharks to save them. The ex did read the poems and messaged me on MySpace Your poems are fucking awesome. He wrote. I would hate to be the guy they are about, oh… wait. He would not be the first guy fascinated when my writing was about him or referred, even briefly, to their existence.

The jacket has stayed and changed along with me on the inside and the out. Do I still want my ex boyfriend and his now wife to die in a plane crash? Not at all. I am embarrassed that I ever gave any of my anger to a woman I didn’t even know, who had no loyalty to me. Do I only listen to punk music? No way. My musical taste is much more broad and less narrow and white boy heavy. Non white boy music is much less likely to disappoint. In Melbourne alone I have seen so many bands over the past year that have enabled me to rock the jacket and jump around in much safer spaces. These bands include but not limited to: Two Steps On The Water, RVG, Shrimp Witch, Sigourney Beaver, Camp Cope, Sampa The Great, Shiny Coin, Maureen, Broads, Veruca Salt, Sleater Kinney and so many more. Actually if you want technical truth the jacket is worn to and from gigs. It is usually too hot to keep my jacket on inside.

I guess this whole thing has been my round about way of saying I love you tiny black leather jacket, here’s hoping we spend another eleven years together. I will hopefully wear you to Mach Pelican at The Bendigo Hotel on the third of December but we both know it will be summer.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/may-your-most-loved-bands-fail-you-before-your-favourite-jacket-does/feed/021740407_10154685797341750_5901989368289824219_ngremlinface24129669_10154846363461750_5572247570033217392_nthe protein responsible for growing fingers in-utero is called Sonic Hedgehoghttps://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/the-protein-responsible-for-growing-fingers-in-utero-is-called-sonic-hedgehog/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/the-protein-responsible-for-growing-fingers-in-utero-is-called-sonic-hedgehog/#respondWed, 22 Nov 2017 06:00:23 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=5133]]>The party takes place at my friend and his partner’s apartment that overlooks Swanston St in the city. He has borrowed a fancy overhead projector from his work and set it up in the small living room. As guests arrived he had the old film Nosferatu playing on the projector screen with no sound. Grimes was playing through the speakers. My partner helped with loading our respective slide show contributions onto my friend’s laptop. We got drinks: white wine poured into red cups like the ones used during frat parties in American college films. The party rules: bring a usb stick of a collection of photos with any theme you wanted.

Three days before my friend’s ‘Slide Party’ themed birthday party, I decided I was ready to show a certain collection of photos from my youth. I asked my mother if she could please find photos from hospital stay circa 1996, take photos of each of them on her phone and text them to me, please. My mother comes through and sends me the photos on Sunday morning of the party day. There are nine photos in total.

The first photo my mother sends me is a school photo taken at the end of the year after my operations and back brace wearing is over. There I am in my green and white checked summer uniform dress that looks a bit big on my tiny frame. I have lots of long dark brown hair and bright blue eys that look a bit sad. My face is yet to loose the chubby cheeks that my parents still gush over when discussing me as a little kid. I stare at that photo and want to jump inside it and give her a big hug and whisper that it gets less lonely particularly when she discovers intersectional feminism.

As I look at each photo of me in my cramped tiny hospital room full of medical machines I feel my heart hurt and sing at the same time. I was my Dad who had to convince me that it was a good idea. At the time I didn’t want him or anyone commemorating this sequence of events in photography.

He knew something that I didn’t yet understand as a thirteen year old. That this was worth documenting and that when I grew up to be the amazing young woman he knew I would become. When that happened, I could look at these photos and they would remind me that I was and always will be a bad ass, and how far I had come. Most importantly to me it would help me write better about it. These photos made long forgotten aspects about that time come to me in a collection of flashes so bright and clear in shape and form, it was like being back in that room all over again.

The first time my parents showed me these freshly developed photos I was a year older. It took that long for them to convince me to even look at them. I hated the photos and I hated the girl in each and every one of them. She is so ugly. I remember thinking. What a sorry and pathetic looking girl. Why couldn’t you just be pretty and normal. I silently screamed at the images in my hands. I cried a lot and begged them to be put away. My father was perplexed. ‘’They are great.’’ He assured me. ‘’They show how great you are.’’

I didn’t want to be amazing for those reasons. I didn’t want spine surgery and halo traction to be the most ‘great’ thing about me. Of course that is not what my father meant at all. I was too young to get it and he was unable to use the wording I needed to hear at that point. But what does matter is that he and my mother tried. My parents didn’t doubt that I was strong and capable. I appreciate that now.

I look at the photos and remember a television in the top right hand corner of the room. A constant sound of the various athletic events taking place due to the Olympics. There is chatter about the swimming and other sporting events between the nurses and my mother. I simply lay on my back and watch the world happen around me and lots of stuff happen to me. As nurses and my mother chat, they check my blood pressure and various tubes. They ask if I am comfortable enough. I press my button for my morphine drip to deliver marvelous pain relief every 4 hours. I can still remember the smell of eucalyptus oil overpowering my nostrils as the nurse used two whole bottles of the stuff to help remove the six layers of bandages covering the ninety-nine stitches on my newly reconstructed back.

My friend’s slide party starts. One person shows a collection of photos of their ill-fated sneakers worn on a three-day hike. Each photo shows the shoes with different landscapes: green foliage, dry cracked earth. It is the stories and comments that accompany the slide show that make it great. Lesson? Do not wear sneakers on a three-day hike. These sneakers got wet on the first two hours of walking.

Another friend shows a collection of photos of their top 5 works of architecture seen on their travels around the world. On her 8th Christmas my friend Jas is given a camera and a cute book of photo prompts with illustrations of bears in the corner of each page. We all got to witness the collection of photos she took as an eight year old. Some of the photos are of relatives that she no longer has contact with. The photos are imbued with extra meaning when she tells us that this particular Christmas was the last time she and her family spent time with these particular relatives. The photos show that she was a talented photo taker even then. ‘’This was the Christmas we played scuba cricket.’’ Jasmine tells us.

The night showed the vast and amazing breadth of personal stories that each of us walk around with every day. It was the stories that showed true vulnerability and courage to share that I loved the most. But is was nice to witness stories that were light hearted. As the night progressed and people got tipsy audience participation stepped up a notch. I was up first in the second half of slide shows after a cheerful and chatty intermission.

There is a mix up with the intended order I want the photos to be shown. The first photo that is blown up on the projector for all to see is the school photo. Some one calls out that I look like a tiny doll. There s many exclamations of how adorable I am. It is nice to hear. It makes me feel warmer than 100 Facebook likes. I think, I have never had that many Facebook likes. Observe the cuteness and ready yourself for what is to come next. I say. This photo was taken in December, one month after I no longer had to wear a back brace and two weeks after I went back to school.

The next photo is a close up of my sleeping face with my head in halo traction. I have one hand peeking out from the white hospital blanket. One finger is resting against my cheek. I explain that the halo traction was held in place by screws that went into my skull. ‘’I still have the faint scars from the drill holes.’’ I explain lifting up my fringe to show everyone. ‘’Two in the for head and two in the back of my skull.’’ I say. ‘’I used to reach up and play with the for head screws to freak out visitors.’’ I say. ‘’It made one uncle nearly want to throw up and he had to leave the room and fight his nausea.’’

My friend Harry comments that the scars on my for head could also be from when the devil horns were removed. ‘’Of course.’’ I say. ‘’I had many operations and cannot be expected to remember them all.’’

The next photo I show is of me sitting up in bed, still in halo traction. I explain. ‘’A young woman is holding a physio-therapy device for helping kids clear out their lungs after surgery to stave off infections in the lungs and chest. I am leaning slightly and blowing into a straw that uses my breath to make small balls move up small chutes.’’

‘’That lady was very kind to me’’ I explain. I was in a lot of pain when blowing in that thing and was a bit grumpy. One of the first times she made me do this exercise I was still unable to sit up and I blew once into the contraption before promptly throwing up all over her.’’

I explain to everyone how in the first operation involved going through my chest in order to fuse my spine and stop it from curving and twisting any further. In order to do this they had to remove my lungs from my body for a few minutes while they did the spine fusing. Then they put my lungs back where they belonged. There was a beautiful young surgical registra who explained to my parents how beautiful my lungs looked as they puffed back into life. ‘’They looked like beautiful pink cauliflowers.’’ She told my parents.

In the next photo I am sitting up in bed with my halo traction on and smiling straight into the camera. There are more exclamations at my cuteness. I am wearing my thick lensed glasses, my long hair is in two pigtails that are poking out of either side of the traction. I tell of how this photo was taken on a Sunday afternoon. The nurses were bored and decided they would like to wash my hair for me. It had been a while and the nurses knew that clean hair can have massive positive affects on a young girl in hospital. They lay me down flat and pulled my head to the very edge of the bed. They got my long hair and washed it as slowly and gently as possible without getting any of the metal and pulleys of the halo traction wet. They even blow-dried my hair. I said. I wore my glasses at my parent’s insistence. This was the photo I always hated the most. I explain. Looking at it now with friends, I felt nothing but pride and affection for the little weirdo in the photo. ‘’I can still remember how much cleaner I felt after I had my hair washed.’’ I say before moving on to the next photo.

I am sitting up in a chair by my bed and reading a book. There is my dinner tray in front of me with some toast and a cup of juice with a drinking straw sticking out. My head is in halo traction but it is not stopping me from having a bit of a read. One of my skinny legs is up and my foot is resting on my other knee. I am glancing out of the corner of my eye at the camera.

‘’Ignoring food while reading.’’ my partner calls out. ‘’Nothing’s changed.’’ Someone asks what book I am reading. ‘’ The book is a collection of short stories published in 1995 called A Bit Of A Hitch.’’ I say. ‘’I cannot remember reading it. I can remember reading the Sweet Valley University books volume 1 and 2, though. And my goodness young Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield don’t experience any less drama in university. They finally have sexual relationships. But, I digress.’’

The next photo shows me without the halo traction screwed into my skull. I’m sitting in a chair wearing a much too large Sportsgirl t-shirt: one of my mother’s opp shop finds. It was the 90s and Sportsgirl t-shirts were Oh-so-on-trend: thus too expensive for my mum and dad to pay for a brand new one. I have my hands in my lap. There are white plastic hospital identification bracelets on my tiny wrists. There are no needles in my arms connected to morphine drips or various other iv drips. You can see the fresh round scars from the halo traction. I did not have a fringe then. My hair is pulled away and tied up in a low ponytail. I am staring at the camera with a quietly determined smile.

My final photo shows myself with the man responsible for my bionic spine. It is so awful but I cannot remember his name. He is in his 60s in the photograph, which means he may very well be dead by now. It’s impossible to know how many kids he helped get better and stronger spines. He would come do rounds with a large group of medical students every morning. I said. He would come alone every evening at about 9pm. Once my slide show is over there is applause and cheering. My partner is next.

He shows an album from a 2010 fancy dress party where he went as a witch resplendent in a velvet black and purple dress and a black witch’s hat. He makes a very attractive witch and the photos get appreciative whistles. He also shows another album that has never been shown anywhere before called Dogs Jess Met In Japan.

He shows 6 photos of me with different but equally adorable dogs, that I met in Japan. One of them was wearing tiny purple pants. My outfits are so much better in these photos. It is not a competition but if it was, I am pretty sure my person and I would have won best and cutest slide shows.

There is an episode in season seven of Buffy The Vampire Slayer called Conversations With Dead People. In it Buffy is hanging around the graveyard like she does and meets a newly turned vampire who happens to be a former classmate. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that this guy is a psychologist now. He and Buffy have quite the heart to heart in the moonlight as she tells him stuff that she has not even really told the people closest to her. About dying and being brought back by her friends, falling in love with people who are bad for her and quietly feeling superior due to the whole being chosen as the slayer and all that comes with that power. He psychoanalyzes her in the following way ‘’You have a superiority complex.’’ He says. ‘And you have an inferiority complex about that.’

I can relate. When returning to school after the surgery, wearing a back brace for three months and recovery time, it was a bit worse than before I left. I was never popular but I spent more and more time alone on my return to school. I found everyone in my class to be difficult to identify with or relate to. They certainly couldn’t relate to me. It feels similar now after more recent hospital stays, though my friendship groups are way better. I fluctuate between feeling infinitely stronger and more bad ass than those around me, while other times find myself panicking that perhaps when my body experienced yet another life or death situation and/or malfunction, the doctors should have written me off as a failed experiment Survival guilt? Something very much like that plagues me at times. Just like it plagued Buffy. Unlike her I haven’t saved the world a bunch of times. Like her, I’m just doing my best.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/the-protein-responsible-for-growing-fingers-in-utero-is-called-sonic-hedgehog/feed/023754963_10154835646661750_7549675297922009820_ngremlinface23722233_10154835541551750_9218919722970471852_nA Mormon Apostate goes to see The Testament Of Maryhttps://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/a-mormon-apostate-goes-to-see-the-testament-of-mary/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/a-mormon-apostate-goes-to-see-the-testament-of-mary/#respondSat, 11 Nov 2017 04:37:46 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=5050]]>In all my time growing up in the Mormon faith, going to church and listening to intensely friendly and faithful grown ups tell me how wonderfully lucky we are to be living in ”the last days” I never heard much talk about any of the women in the bible or in The Book Of Mormon. Women were very important as back round support to the men doing all the exciting and dangerous stuff. It was a women who was so unfaithful that she wanted to see concrete proof of these golden plates that her husband claimed to be translating. Because of her demand a section of the golden plates was lost. She was meant to simply believe all her husband told her. How annoying of her and her critical mind. There was the woman who was turned to salt because she could not resist looking behind her one last time and catching a final glimpse of her home burning. Women were special and a requirement of gods great plan. It was a shame they never got more than a word in edge ways. I could not count how many times I was shown the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saint’s version of the crucifiction of christ on VHS. With very little talk of Mary as anything more than ever faithful and subservient.

It was with excitement and a little trepidation that I sat down in the front row a few moments before the show started. I was not scared that I would be offended. It was more just anxious excitement that this time I was ready to experience this sort of story without the pressure to believe it as a fact. I could watch this play and react to it as I chose or as I was moved to by emotion or intellect or both. This could be enjoyed as fiction. You do not need to believe a novel is true in order to enjoy it on a deep and meaningful level. It can feel as though it shines a light on an aspect of your soul you did not previously acknowledge or have the language for.

The older women sitting on my left with perfectly done make up and hair asked me to watch out for her cup of water. She was quite excited to see this play as well. Have you seen the Book Of Mormon Musical? I ask her. She says she has and loved it. I tell her I think that this production is going to be more serious. I tell her I was raised Mormon and her face lights up with interest and curiosity. The house lights dim and we turn to the stage.

There are 9,312 words spoken in this production and Jesus is not one of them. This could very well be one of the reasons this play spoke so much to the little girl inside of me that was thirsting for stories about strong female characters in my religious education. Unlike the crying Mary I saw so often in my Sunday school teachings and family night scripture readings, this Mary was fiercely intelligent, poetic and dry humoured. Pamela Rabe does a brilliant job of creating a Mary that is able to hold your attention for the entire one hour and fifteen minutes. You do not even feel that time has past. She is able to weave the past trauma of her sons death with the anger and impatience of a women who is forced to tell her story to men with very strong self interest. They tell her this story will change the world, the whole world. They want to make a god of her son. While she is simply mourning the loss of someone very dear to her. According to this mary, the fact that her son will change the world is not worth what it cost him, and what it took from her.

This play is set a couple of years after Jesus was killed and it is unexpectedly moving to hear Mary describe watching her son struggle to move or dislodge the crown of thorns from the top of his head. You can feel the sharp thorns and the weight just by the description and tone of Rabe’s voice as she embodies the pain of a mother forced to watch thier child suffer and know they can do nothing to help. It made me wonder how many women in the audience were thinking about a time in which they had to do a similar thing: watch a child show pain or anguish and know they could be there but not take the pain away at all. It is trite but it did make me think of my own mother. All those times she had to watch me hooked up to things in hospital. At least she could trust the people looking after me. If Mary had called out to her son, she would have been taken away.

The stage is set up like a room but modern with blue lighting and there is a feeling of the type of room where criminals are kept for questioning, that same unforgiving office room lighting. We are told that it is here that the men come who want to writer her story down for the benefit of mankind. They dont like how she tells it though. We are told that these men do not care to hear her poetic asides about the wind or stars. As a person who was forced to read the bible and hear it read aloud as well as read The Book Of Mormon, this part of the play spoke to my boredom of these two texts. They are not literature, Perhaps if more women were aloud to have their say, these books would be more interesting. Regardless it is through this production that we the audience are given the gift of what the ancient bible stories lack: the truth as told by Mary herself. She is telling us her most precious truth and it is tinged with understandable rage. She is not unquestioning or subservient. She is a mother mourning the loss of her boy. She is grappling with the guilt that she could not save him.

Has his death changed the world? You could argue that it has and not in a good way. So many institutions have twisted and manipulated this story for personal and political gain. Believing in jesus does not make you more empathic or sensitive. Some of my most painful memories have been cemented by people who believe in a certain kind of jesus. While some of my happiest memories involve people and activities I was raised to view as impure or sinful or simply ”frowned upon by The man upstairs/” I am done living a life for that man or any other. .

When Mary is pleading for strength she is not doing so in the name of the Heavenly Father and her son she is calling on Athena the goddesses of wisdom, Nike the goddess of strength. The goddess Minerva of intellect and may other ancient and strong diety that are not mentioned in the Bible or The Book Of Mormon. I feel I would have read more intently if they were.

When The play ends I feel disoriented and foggy as if waking from a dream. As it is opening night my companion and I get some finger food and free sparkling wine. As we are leaving my companion pulls me to a bench that is shrouded in shadow. There I meet Pamela Rabe who is sitting there smoking a cigarette like she is a regular person and not the mother of Jesus. I tell her she was wonderful. My friend tells her that I was raised Mormon. Pamela raises her face to mine in interest. ”You didn’t find it blasphemous? She asks. I shake my head enthusiastically. We chat and it come up that myself and my friend are in a program to write plays of our own. ”I am terrified.” I tell this amazing actress who responds that the fear is a good thing. I say how I would like to maybe write a play from the perspective of a young mormon woman or an old one who have lived a live by all the rules stipulated to them by the man upstairs and the large group of men here on the lower level. The Book Of Mormon is a great musical but it says nothing of the women in the church and how they feel. ”I think you might have a play right there.” Pamela says. I leave the theatre that night feeling inspired and wishing my mother lived in Melbourne so I could take her to see this play.

The band G0-Go Sapien has been around for six years. They were formally called The Great Apes until another band with the same name contacted them. I showed up to this gig because my friend has recently started dating the younger brother of band member Emily Jarret. I would just like to state here and now how in awe I am of siblings that are so creative and supportive of each other. It makes my heart all gooey and slightly envious. I mean, whats that kind of sibling relationship like? Also these two particular siblings are quite attractive in that they seem to have brilliant chromosome alignment.

I had no idea what I am in for and am quite excited. No research into the band prior to arriving at the tote had been undertaken. Save for finding the band’s facebook page and quickly pressing like. This is one of the great things about living in Melbourne and retaining a love of the local music scene and maintaining your live music curiosity.

This particular gig was special as it was the launch of their third album Love In Other Dimensions

They performed the entire album on stage for the crowd. I was enthralled from the very first moment. There was amazing lighting decisions and a sense of anticipation. It felt like something from a sixties science fiction film. The band member appeared on stage all wearing white outfits. This was to be the first of many costume changes.

Will Hindmarsh even had a spider costume that he wore while performing the song Victorian Spiders whose lyrics could have been from a HP Lovecroft story. The sense that the band members were in thier element up there is an understatement. Thier joy was infectious and its been ages since smiling idiotically with joy has been a impulse of the mouth muscles. This band is fun and this band if dramatic and theatrical without taking themselves too seriously. They reminded me of what my drama teacher said in our first year twelve class, ”If you want to succeed here, you need to leave your inhibitions at the door.” It would be very surprising if some of their inspiration came from the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its song Don’t dream it be it. Emily Jarret’s red sparkly get up was the epitome of a living dream.

Sexy Kiss, the second last song on the album is performed with extra surreal zeal. Will and Emily perform the song wearing home made masks of giant lips.

It is when I hear the song Winona that I realize I have heard the song played on Triple R and loved it from the first driven beat. It is an even better song played live. In fact the whole new album is brilliant fun to witness live. But not so scared that I wont do it. You should buy the album as it is quite beautiful. You can get an ear taste of what they sound like by going to band camp: https://gogosapien.bandcamp.com/album/love-in-other-dimensions

As my friend says: G0_Go Sapien are the perfect love child of Ween and the B52s – an eclectic bundle of joy wrapped in spandex ready to infect you with dance and solubiouse metaphor.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/not-your-imaginary-friend-go-go-sapien-at-the-tote-5112017/feed/023316585_10154801808086750_1453277041333375308_ngremlinface23172704_10154801808156750_8528387198136966876_n19260381_10154801808071750_4139717421468309155_n (1)23172853_10154801808076750_7365265776289170272_nBeing born is an accident of chance.https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/being-born-is-an-acciedent-of-chance/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/being-born-is-an-acciedent-of-chance/#respondSun, 05 Nov 2017 01:48:34 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=4918]]>Imagine being told that You decided to be born. In the pre existence. You were given the opportunity to be born into a human body. You were one of the ones who jumped for joy at the prospect of living in fallible human skin and bone. You chose this. Be grateful. You knew what you were getting into.

The day I was born was exciting, so I am told. Being the first born is pretty great. You are the one born before all the others. You parents are not distracted by the needs of other offspring. I am one who was told they were wanted from the very start.

When I turn seventeen, my best friend throws me a party in her parents garage. There is alcohol but I’m mormon so dont partake. It is my first party with friends and no annoying little sisters to keep away from my friends. I am drunk on freedom and the beauty of my best friend. A boy tries to trick me into drinking lemonade with vodka in it. My best friend intervenes and gets very pissed off at the boy. I simply watch her give him a piece of her beautiful mind. Its at that party that she tells me I might might like a band called The Sashing Pumkins. By the time I turn eighteen she will not be my best friend. She wont even be a friend. The heart ache is all consuming.

On the birthday I turn eighteen it is the day I take my final English exam. The plan is to have a small party with my family that evening. Instead i end up in the front seat of my parents Nissen while my mother lays in the back quiet and falling asleep. My father drives her to St Vincents hospital in Melbourne. The day I turned eighteen almost became the birthday my mother died. If she had fallen asleep in the car, she would not have woken up. She receives life saving brain surgery on the day I turn eighteen.

When I turn twenty – one I am no longer a good mormon girl. I drink. The second time a boy spikes my non alcoholic beverage, there is no best friend to intervene. Just a large group of accomplices. I have two parties. A family one and one at university. The family one involves a giant ice cream sundae served in a brand new and unused pig trough. My cake is in the shape of a flying saucer, a cheeky nod to mu childhood fear of extra terrestrials. My fathers speech includes words about not being overly thrilled with some of my decisions. There is uncondional love there still. The uni one is pretty rubbish. I was only doing what I thought you were expected to do when you turned twenty-one. I did enjoy being free to get drunk with my friends though. There was no booze at my family party.

when I turn twenty 4, it is the first birthday spent with a boyfriend. I get a music festival ticket. Having a boyfriend seems cool after five months. I think. The friendship group has changed. There are no friends from high school or uni. It seems that I am quite good at reinventing myself. And burning bridges. My share house where the party is held, is falling apart. It is near Brunswick St. Im starting to know about how my body works and what feels good. My boyfriend does not want to spend the night and this makes me sad. There is a fight and he ends up staying. It makes no sense to me at the time.

When I turn twenty-five I still have the same boyfriend. I get a pile of gifts including books, voucher for my favorite clothing store: Vicious Venus. I am young, in love and spend my birthday drinking and dancing at The Rochester Castle. Two days later I will be hit by a depressive episode so bad and for so long that I finally seek mental health help.

Twenty six. I am single again and live in a house with a guy who smokes inside and stays up drinking scotch until they pass out on the couch every night. I throw a party and make all sorts of treats for my guests. A throw back to childhood parties. I make fairy bread and rum balls and chocolate crackles. It is a good party but in all the photos, I look sick and skinny and sad. My eyes do not lie. You can see in my face that I know the truth: I have been replaced so easily. This is the birthday I decide I can sleep with other people and I do.

Twenty seven is spent in London. I get a package containing three illustrations from a beautiful boy in Melbourne. They arrive on my birthday and I take it as a sign that we are meant to be together. He misses me as much I miss him, I am sure of it. I put the three framed drawings in the centre of the mantle piece in the room I share with a friend. She agrees this is all pointing to true love. We get drunk in our room and I let a Spanish girl cut my fringe for me so I can kiss British boys while out in Camden. She nips my right eyelid a bit accidentally. Its not until Im on the train with my friend that she notices my eye lid is bleeding a little bit. I wipe the blood away while laughing and take a swig from the bottle of vodka. I was wrong. Drawings were a red herring. I end up destroying them when I get home to Melbourne. Im not one who takes being played with with poise or grace.

I share my birthday with Sylvia Plath and John Cleese. Which could explain how I walk the line between humour and poetic emotional extremes. Im so self involved I cannot remember any of my siblings being born. Should I have two birthdays since I died for four minutes that day in july? Or is that just a death day that didnt stick technically speaking? My most recent birthday was rife with existential dread and anxiety. When I voiced this to a friend they sent me the following message.

Its great that your in the world for another year. You’re such a ray of sunshine, cheeky mischievousness and I love your contempt for men.

This cheered me. As did having a small dinner party with friends and being lucky enough to have a double birthday cake birthday. Cake is great and being alive is greatly varied.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/being-born-is-an-acciedent-of-chance/feed/022730519_10154779988756750_8290531263773338108_ngremlinface23130861_10154799660931750_1821872004209166394_nThe day before my birthdayhttps://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/26/the-day-before-my-birthday/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/26/the-day-before-my-birthday/#respondThu, 26 Oct 2017 12:11:43 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=4858]]>I saw some art today. It was an impulse decision made as I got ready to leave the house for my first hair cut in months and months. I had cut my own fringe a week ago and been very pleased with the result. I am not sure why the last hair dresser I had told me to never do that again.. I suppose it was to make me feel like I had to go back there every time I needed a trim. They played the wrong woman. I have a history of cutting my own hair and clothes.

The exhibition is at Daine Singer gallery on Flinders Lane. I heard about the show on the radio. So I decide to go. The artist is a woman named Katherine Hattam who has been exhibiting since 1978. Her current exhibition is called Seeing Through. I love the works as soon as I step inside the gallery and see the bright vivid colours and feel the world of each painting pulling me towards it. I can only go to look at one at a time. There is so much intricacy and intertextuality within these art works. There is colour pallet that perfectly coincide with the colours of different genres in the Penguin Classics series. There are penguin classic excerpts and coveres and spines worked into the paintings. It is so amazing o me how very different a painting or collage of everyday mess and clutter, can look so beautiful, intellectually rich in meaning and whimsy when filtered through the mind and skill of a visual artist. It is like a wonderful form of magic to me. It makes me both sad and happy that I never went to art school. Happy because I like not knowing all the tricks and language. Sad because I hate not knowing all the tricks and language. The art work from the exhibition I have used for the feature image of this blog post is called Ring Of Bright Water, 2017 mixed media on linen 49 x 62 cm. It is my birthday so if you have 3000 dollars to spare and want my undying gratitude…

Before I left the house today, I listened to The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. The songs had even more interesting meaning and contextual poignancy now than it did when I fell in love with it 11 years ago. I made my brother buy it for me for christmas. I had my first fit of depression that year. I was a husk. Who knows why an album that references death, cancer, blood, the futility of life in general, how scary teenagers can seem, could be such a comfort then and now. I know why. It is because it is a relief to know you are not the only one silently trying to stamp out that constant shiver of fear and sadness humming away constantly inside. As I pulled on my beloved dark green t shirt, I sang along to the song about joining the black parade,

I was called an emo before I even knew what one was. He was one of those middle class suburban boy punks who listened to Gutter Mouth and Drop Kick Murphys. Who was impressed when he found that I knew the meanings of the big words I used sometimes.

Now, here I am no longer 22 and feeling closer to death even though the closest I have been to death is actually being dead so… This current near death stance is more emotional and existential. There has been some great references and acknowledgements of the futility of life in the shows I have been binge watching on Netflix recently. The animated series about puberty Big Mouth has a brilliant song that all the characters sing while at The girl Jessie’s bar mitzva. There is something oddly life affirming in the way they sing the chorus:

Life is a fucked up mess! Life’s a fucked up mess. Yeah, its a shit show!

Its really hard not be feel cheered as you find yourself singing along to that morbid yet up tempo refrain.

The good place starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell is another brilliant show that manages to mix moral ethics, psychology, death and the afterlife with humour and scathing wit. Ted Danson plays Michael who is a demi god type being that designs and builds worlds for the dead. Kristen Bell is a dead person who was not such a great human while alive, not evil, just a bit of an ass hole. When Michael finally comprehends the concept of him not existing anymore, when he suddenly understands that death is entirely possible, he freaks out and has an existential crises. He curls up on the couch and its all too much to even bare thinking about. Yet, as we all know who have had an existential crises, the thinking is hard to pull back or dial down. It is hard to be upbeat when you have ”eaten a huge bowl of enui” to quote Kristen Bell’s character Elinore.

For me getting a hair cut was a good way of attempting to distract myself, for a couple of hours, from the enui I was drowning in in relation to my birthday. I know I have things to look forward to: The Junket unconferencein Canberra on sunday till tuesday, A Besen fellowship with The Malthouse Theatre. This is my last day of being 34, I keep thinking.

In my desk drawer is a photo of my parents. They are lying together on a pier in the sunshine. My Dad is 22 and my mother is 23. On the back of the photo my mother has written Robert and I April 1981. My father proposed that afternoon. I love that photo.

At the age I am now, my mother had birthed 5 children while working on a farm with my father. Here I am excited about going to stay in a fancy hotel for free with free food and drinks for three days. I am excited that my writing was published in Meanjin ( on the blog, still exciting). I am proud that my leather jacket has lasted 11 years and I still love it. Surely there are parallels that can be drawn between child rearing and leather jacket up keep? I want to write a book. I feel it simmering away inside my bones and through my nervous system. You don’t need to be young and sexy to write a book. Theres still time for that.

At the hair dressers I am served chai tea and fake chicken salt pop corn. I get my hair washed and a head massage as the hairdresser and I talk about religion, politics and feminism. She asks me to read a story in a free press magazine. She wants me to read it as a writer and see if I understand. She cant figure it out and wants to know if ts because she is a ”ditzy hair dresser.” She is not that at all. I read the story and feel nothing for it. It is alright. There is a bike ride, some police brutality. I am told that the author of this story is my hair dressers boyfriend. He has out of the blue decided he wants to be a writer and makes her read his stuff after she has been working on her feet for over 12 hours. ”The last thing this world needs.” I tell her. ”Is another white guy trying to be a writer.” So, he shouldn’t give up his day job? She asks. I shake my head. I immediately feel awful. I have been too honest again. But the thought of him making her read his stuff every night and her feeling stupid for not ”getting” his writing, made me feel so sad for her. It made me hate this guy who I have never met. My opinion was not improved when I learned that he read lots of books at home but didn’t do any housework.

My hair is cut and blow dried. The beautiful and skilled hairdresser styles my hair so it has a bit of soft curl with a touch of mussed up rock goddess. She didnt even mind that I cut my own fringe. She loved it.

When I visited to Japan, I was sure it would be so easy to find clothes that fit me. I listened to friends tell of terrible experiences they had, trying to find cute clothes that fit them. I was excited: I am small, after all. I took a practically empty suitcase to fill with a whole new wardrobe from Japan but ended up filled with escalating self-loathing from store to store, trying on item after item that looked great on the rack, but took on a weird and unflattering shape when put on my body. This should have been have fun! The pressure to come home with a whole new collection of clothes that fit and felt good, wasn’t helping. My fifth, sixth day in Tokyo, 8pm. I’m sitting on the steps leading to a huge UNIQLO and burst into stressed, ugly tears. It wasn’t until I started reading Mel Campbell’s Out Of Shape Debunking Myths About Fashion And Fit (Affirm Press, 2013) that I began to understand exactly where this very intense tearful outburst in the centre of Tokyo had come from. This book would have been a great deal better at comforting me as a teenager with scoliosis than the Bible, or being told I was being prayed for.

In Campbell’s introduction we’re told that much of the angst about size and fit comes from the idea that to be socially successful we need to constantly tend to and revise our appearance. She has ingeniously coined a term to explain this philosophy which is ‘orthovestia’ – created from the Latin words for ‘correct’ and ‘clothing’.

She explains that ‘orthovestia’ does not solve the problem of finding well fitting clothes, it simply fools us into thinking that when they don’t fit, it’s our fault. It makes us think we need expert help to guide and correct us. Campbell shows us that what seems like helpful advice is really social control and moral policing. Imagine if we could study this book, these concepts, in high school – I have this utopian vision of this book being read in social studies, or physical education. Excerpts could be handed out to youths, who are so vulnerable to feeling like utter garbage about their rapidly changing bodies because it is heartfelt and candid, as well as fascinating in the scope and breadth of information it covers. I found myself repeatedly rereading paragraphs and placing scraps of paper in pages that held particularly interesting nuggets of information and comfort. Though it’s difficult to choose, I’ll share five of my most loved nuggets of information gleaned from this literary hug and galvanizing pat on the back.

TIGHT PANTS ARE FOR REBELS AND HEROES at least that’s what cool dudes in skinny jeans hope. Trousers or ‘pantaloons’ after the commedia dell’arte character Pantalone – were once literally revolutionary an emblem of the militant working class, sans-culottes (without knee breeches), who had acted as French revolution foot soldiers came to epitomise wholesome Republican masculinity. The decadent royalist effeminacy of breeches that were cut so slimly they almost resembled leggings, they were sometimes worn with a stirrup strap under the foot to assist in achieving the ‘classical’ tautness.

Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s bobbed hair, jersey knit fabrics and man style blazers and trousers are said to have been inspired by the sartorial sensibilities of her lover and early financier, English polo player Arthur ‘boy’ Capel. The square, beveled lines of her No. 5 perfume recalled the shapes of his toiletry bottles and whiskey decanters. Chanel rejected the dainty froufrou femininity that prevailed in Edwardian fashion.

Like Chanel regency- era socialite George Bryan ‘Beau’ Brummell was a self made social climber in deliberate simple clothing. He was a middle class lad who became close to the prince regent, the future George IV. Brummell stood out from and fascinated the Georgian aristocracy with his fastidious hygiene and taste for unadorned, fitted dark coats, pale buckskin trousers, crisp white shirts, carefully knotted cravats and shiny boots that Brummell recommended champagne for polishing purposes. He did not actually have the wealth to back up his lifestyle and died in poverty in France 1840. Mel cambpell theorizes a reason for the incredibly tight dandies pants being the celebration of physical beauty.

This preoccupation with tight pants made me think of one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite shows. It is with whimsy and humor in an episode of The Mighty Boosh that tight pant obsession is explored. In the episode where Vince is so desperate to perform lead singer duties with one of his favorite bands that he agrees to their stipulation. They give him a pair of incredibly skinny jeans that are so tight they would cause damage. Vince has to be able to fit into and wear them by the time the gig starts. It is funny but also a comment on how the fashion of the original Dandies is still quite popular here in the 21st century via the fashion of skinny British boys in indie bands.

2. THE BERLEI SERVEY AKA THE NATIONAL CENSUS OF WOMENS MEASUREMENTS surveyed 6000 women aged 15 to 65 Australia wide over the summer of 1926-1927. It remains the basis of Australian women’s apparel sizing to this day. Brothers Frederick and Authur Burley adopted scientifically precise fit and public showmanship as core company values. Doctor Grace Fairley Boelke was employed by the brothers as Berlei’s medical director to ensure its corsets were ‘anatomically correct’, and urged willowy flappers to ‘corset for the future’ in order to prevent irreparable damage to ‘muscles and vital organs’. Berlei’s 1920s marketing reflected pop cultures prevailing worship of youthful sporty silhouettes; the implied athleticism of its wrap-on ‘Dance Girdle’ was continued in the 1924 promotional musical revue, titled Youth Triumph

IN 2004 JANET JACKSON had one of her breasts revealed by Justin Timberlake on national television and it caused a huge sensation. What was meant to happen was that Timberlake would remove the topmost layer of material covering a red lace bra. What ended up happening was that Timberlake accidentally removed both layers of fabric and thus her breast and nipple was shown to the world for mere seconds. The term ‘wardrobe malfunction’ was never illustrated to well. The reaction to this and other celebrity gossip may make you think that celebrity gossip has gotten more mean spirited. However in eighteenth century England, cruel caricatures of the rich and fashionable were similar to todays fashion blogs.

The cartoonist Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811) was not a fan of the light, diaphanous drapery of empire silhouettes of women’s fashion in the 1790s. In his1794 cartoon ‘The Rage , Or Shepards I Have Lost My Waist’, a woman in a fashionable empire-waisted gown is watched by a shorter fatter lady- who wears the same fashions to much less flattering effect- as she appears to declaim a comic poem about the absurdity of the prevailing silhouette. ‘A woman’s only top and tail/the body’s banished God knows where.’

Cruickshank died of alcohol poisoning at 55 after winning a drinking competition. His two sons followed in his footsteps and became cartoonists. Robert inherited his father’s obsession with wardrobe malfunctions. He scornfully depicted fashionably dressed young men – dandies, or ‘exquisites’ as they were mockingly called – as either scrawny and effeminate or grotesquely fat with thick, shiny lips, with faces always half hidden by preposterously high winged collars and swathed cravats.

The Cruickshank family did not at all agree with the idea that Iris Apfel would discuss over 100 years later. Apfel the now 94 year-old style icon who has recently had a documentary made about her life. In the documentary she has said that it is more important to be happy than dressed appropriately. I think Iris would love Mel Campbell’s book. Somebody should send the woman a copy.

‘FIT’ BEGAN TO MEAN ‘BEAUTIFUL’ AND ‘SEXY’ IN THE 1890’S, AS THE WESTERN world nestled into creature comforts. Charismatic exercise impresarios exploited the widespread anxieties that urban affluence would start an epidemic of feeble masculinity and hysterical femininity.

Born Fredrich Wilhelm Muller in what is now Russia, Prussian circus strongman Eugen Sandow made his debut on the London music hall stage in 1889. Sandow set out to epitomize ideal manhood. He studied classical Greek and Roman sculptures and trained his own physique to the same proportions. He published Sandow’s System Of Physical Training followed by Strength And How To Obtain It in 1897.

MEETING SANDOW AT THE 1893 WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION IN CHOCAGO made a big impression on Bernarr Macfadden, a wiry little man from Missouri, who would become future physical culture publishing magnate. Macfadden’s personal motto was , ‘weakness is a crime – don’t be a criminal.’

He maintained a punishing health regime that included week long fasts and obsessive exercising. The man showed signs of straight up eating disorder coupled with a warped understanding of his own body. He died of a urinary blockage. He refused medical attention and attempted to treat the ailment by fasting. Macfadden did not agree with crafty shortcuts to a woman making herself beautiful. He did not believe in make up and hair products. Only diet and exercise were, he thought, believed to make woman look good. And if she looked bad, she could only blame herself. Another of his charming mottos was ‘Health is beauty. Ugliness is sin.’

As far as I can understand it, Mister Macfadden is one of the original dude bros that helped launch them all. I will think of him every time I read a horrible comment under a feminist piece of writing and go to stalk the commenter. It seems that there is a common profile photo style to these guys. They can be found posing topless showing their gym junkie physique.

The greatest gift a book can bestow to its reader is the expanding of understanding and knowledge about the world we live in and the many nuanced places we can hold within it. This book is not some silly book about fashion and the ways in which we can make ourselves more pleasing to the eyes. It is deconstruction of the why we feel perpetually bad about our bodies. This book does not fix anything but, it provides ways in which to think our selves out of the self esteem quagmire that is clothes shopping and finding the perfect fit. Less Macfaddens and more intelligent and witty writers like Mel Campbell please.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/the-heartening-genius-and-humour-of-out-of-shape-debunking-myths-about-fashion-and-fit-written-by-mel-campbell-affirm-press/feed/122491910_10154749291291750_5205353530712233619_ngremlinfaceFree Drinks On A Spring Saturdayhttps://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/4765/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/4765/#respondMon, 09 Oct 2017 04:19:38 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=4765]]>I am not my feature image. That is not something I can constantly be. Saturday proved this in hyper colour and surround sound. At least thats how it seems in my anxiety filled over thinking and reliving every wrong word. Why wasn’t I just chill about it all?

It was a rare day where I was to make an appearance at more than one event. I felt pretty good about this. It is sunny and waiting for my friend to pick me up, I stood and marvelled at the beauty of my tree lined street. The sun dappled through branches and leaves. Dappled sunlight is my preferred way to enjoy sun. Anything extra is too much and makes me want to punch people.

My friend and I go to a book launch in Yarraville. I have never been to a more crowded book launch in my life. It was taking place in a hall and it was full. There was a long table filled with delicious food: cheese, cracker, mini scones with strawberry jam and whipped cream, chicken sandwiches, chocolate chip biscuits and craft beer, sparkling wine, white and red whine. It was like church dance food from my teen years, only so much better as there was booz and we were celebrating creation of literature not creationism. I ate as much brie and fancy cracker as I could without seeming greedy. I think. And drank a couple of cups of ice cold sparkling.

As I was standing in a circle of friends a tall generically too handsome for his own good man came up and stood beside me with the kind of confidence that comes from existing in the skin sack version of winning the genetic lottery looks wise. He is staring at me when I turn my head and look at him. ”I know you.” He says. He is smiling as if we are friends and I am filled with the distinct impression of an opposite emotion. He has the swagger of many annoying young men of my past. ”I do not know you.” I say. ”But Im not wearing my glasses so hang on.” I phish my glasses out of my anarack pocket and place them on my face. I look at him blankly. ”nope, still no idea who you are.” I say.

Turns out we went to uni together in Ballarat. We both stayed in the double story student housing estate called Bella Guiran. We had not ever been in the same unit though. I had no memory of him and after speaking to him for too long than was probably required, I understood why. He was boring. He had enjoyed his drunken three years on college accommadation. He studied management and was now a city planner. When he asked me about what I do now. I tell him excitedly about the National Young Writers Festival and how it was such a honour to be a part of it. He responds with basic bastard crap about how we are in out thirties and couldn’t possibly be considered young. Being creative is not like management I retort. You dont simply graduate and step into a job and then slowly start to die one boring day at a time. You start the slog when ever if hits you and then you die slowly one day at a time, while creating as much as you can. There is no one way to be a writer, there is no hard and fast timeline. God I hate you. I think as we continue talking.

I rant about how living on student halls of residence was a cultural and intellectual wasteland for me. How the rape culture was rampant and toxic, with drink spiking incredibly prevalent. How the pick up charts in every unit made you feel like a loser if you didn’t do any of the things ( sleep over for sexy times, vomit from too much alcohol, shower with someone)For him it was just fun going to uni and binge drinking. He never had to make certain plans every time he went out on the town like the young women did.

He never had to deal with little things that ate away at your autonomy. Like when I got my drink spiked with alcohol by a trusted male friend. I had never drank alcohole before then due to my religion. I never got to choose to drink alcohole on my own terms. I do of course tell this guy that as well.

”Im so glad I never had sex with any of those idiots. I declare. He tells me he goes back to ballarat four to five times a year to see mates. I never go back. I tell him. What annoyed me the most was how he introduced himself as knowing me. The absolute gal of it. He does not have any idea who I am. Seeing me around uni and speaking to me a few times while he was wasted is not knowing me. The person he spoke to while drunk all those years ago no longer exists. I tell him that since no longer caring what men think of me, I have become so much happier and confident. It is obvious by the way he starts looking away from me and staring out at the crowded hall, looking for an escape, that he did not envision his interaction with me going to such intense levels so quickly. I don’t do small talk. He was only at the launch because he had a high school connection to the author. Lucky for him my friend comes to get me as this guy is saying that he seems to have brought out a lot of bad memories. She has so many. My friend declares as she drags me away. I stop and get one last question out while gesturing at me face with my hands. Have I changed much since then? He shakes his head. I laugh as I walk away with my friend. He is so wrong.

The next scene takes place at a friends home on a stunning street in an area I am unfamiliar with. It is a birthday gathering that will contain me into the late hours of evening. On entering the house I am already happy tipsy but probably also a bit rattled from the previous encounter. I told him too much about myself, I stress inwardly. He did not need all that information. You should have just blanked him after saying you dont remember him and avoided him in the crowd for the rest of the launch. I should have simply said that it was a grand time of growth and independence surrounded by amazing and inspiring people. I should have mixed some of the truth with a portion of pretty. I loved how cold it was there. I loved the friendly goths.

As soon as I entered the home of my friend she hugged me and hugged my companion. I was going to follow her through to the kitchen when a young girl locked eyes with me. She was very nearly as tall as me. She came up to me and asked how old I was. I tell her. she took in this information without changing her expression. ”Do you suffer from Drawfism?” I say that I don’t. Then why are you smaller than everyone hear? She asks. I fight the very strong urge to kick her in the shins and burst into tears. In my grown up voice I answer with a ”no”. I feel bad about feeling offended by this. It reeks of internalised ableism. Or does it? If you are asked repeatedly over time if you have a condition that you don’t have, even by grown ups, is it ok to be miffed and annoyed? Because that is how I feel. Perhaps it is because I do already know about the things I do have (not suffer, that is ableist language) I leave the little ”intellectually curios” scamp and follow my friends for a drink.

When a friend suggests I remove my anorak, I get weird and say that I wont just yet. It is warm and I do want to take it off. The paranoid voice inside whispers that if I take it off, my structural crookedness due to scoliosis would be shown more noticeably. If that little human came up and asked with her dead eyed stare why my posture was a bit weird and my bare shoulders looked rounded, I doubt I would have any patience left to explain it to her in my grown up voice. When her parents heard about it they looked uncomfortable and apologized saying that this was why she didn’t have any friends at school. I didn’t really fully relax until the little family left. It was then I sighed a breath of relief and shrugged out of my Aldi children’s Anorak, and drank my fourth drink of the day.

When it gets dark I get so emotionally vulnerable that the hostess kindly takes me out the back of house and we sit there together on the steps and look out into the dark as I talk and cry and talk some more. She helps me see that there are options and I am not so alone as I feel sometimes. Her kindness is so overwhelming and the crying and talking really helps. Its like throwing all your worst parts out into the open air and someone else catches them gives you an escape and then lets it float away and dissolve.I was not crying because a little girl had the gal to ask me questions. I know thats what it looks like. But its just that the kids I see regularly do not ever ask things like that they just no me as aunty by blood or by association. It has been years since I was teaching primary school kids and getting questions like that so often it didn’t matter. I lie, it did matter. As I sit and cry hot cathartic tears, the beautiful lady greyhound comes over and licks at my tear stained cheek. It s not even an overly sloppy lick, it is more like a sniff with a bit of a soft kiss. Dogs are neat. So is having strong female friendships who let you do the cry thing once in a while.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/4765/feed/017353605_10154216913321750_8086013472001421133_ngremlinfaceThe Male Gaze is turned on its head and it is cathartic as all hell.https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/the-male-gaze-is-turned-on-its-head-and-it-is-cathartic-as-all-hell/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/the-male-gaze-is-turned-on-its-head-and-it-is-cathartic-as-all-hell/#respondFri, 06 Oct 2017 01:22:08 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=4669]]>

When Candy Bowers messaged me on social media asking for my phone number I was excited. Nobody asks for my phone number these days. I gave it willingly and then experienced mild anxiety at the thought of receiving a phone call and having to actually speak over the phone.

I have been lucky enough to be on a panel with Candy about girl representation on Television. I have taken part in one of her writing for performance workshops where a young white man had the audacity to ask Candy, a seasoned and brilliant performer, writer and singer, what her credentials were.

It turned out Candy was working on a night of live performance art with her collaborator Victoria Chiu and thought I would be perfect to play a game show host type role for a subversive beauty pageant made up of white heterosexual men. The premise sounded brilliant and I agreed with gusto. Me? help facilitate a performance that puts men in the shoes of women for a small moment in time? A chance to treat some men the way men have been treating women since the dawn of time? Yes please.

The men who would be in the beauty pageant all had to be volunteers. They all had to be straight. They all had to be able to look serious and not goofy. They were not to look like they were having fun. This was not your American style beauty pageant. This short piece of live performance art would have a kareoke part. The men would have to take turns singing a part of a Justin Bieber song called Baby. A song that starts nice and takes a dark turn if you listen to the lyrics. Before that part the men would come on stage and do a short cohesive dance where they would end up standing in a row on stage after taking turns taking of theIr jackets. I would introduce each male contestant and share a couple of made up facts about each male contestant. Candy and Victoria said I had free creative agency for that. The only guideline was that the names for the men had to be hyper masculine: Hard, Rock and so on.

It can feel like every time I leave the house I enter some sort of twisted pagent without even signing a release or permission for pervs to openly share thier views on my looks and body. If your a woman you cannot even go to order a burger without some dude feeling entitled to comment on your order or your legs. If I had a dollar for everytime a man looked me up and down and said something to my face that made me feel worthless I would have a lot of dollars. Men treat the entire world as of it is a beauty pageant and they are the judge. If you are a black woman you get over sexualized and if you are a woman with a disability you can be infantilised. That is why this performance was so exciting to me. It put me and the two woman who would be the judges, into the position of power usually reserved for white men.

Victoria Chiu got the inspiration for the show while on a trip to Singapore. She stubled across something that really affected her. She managed to take some sneaky photos to take back and show Candy. The photos were not shared on social media out of respect for the women in the photos.

In a room with a stage and the audience of suited men sitting in the dark, Victoria watched as a collection of 10 or so women stood on stage wearing white wedding dresses. The dresses were very virginal and modest. Each woman held some red fans and did an awkward dance with the fans in their hands. They held tight smiles in place as they danced. They looked like they were there because they needed the money. Surely money was involved? The women finished the dance and then they did kareoke. When each woman had completed their song they stood in a line on stage and men took turns placing a sash with a money amount on it, over the head of the woman they had chosen. The chosen woman would then step off stage and leave with the man who had chosen them. These women were not doing this ritual on stage for fun. There was no sense of frivolity in that room. It was sex trafficking for the already wealthy men who wanted it done with a sense of refinement and class.

Candy and Victoria managed to get enough white straight male volunteers and we practised about three times leading up to the show. The point of the show was to make people laugh and enjoy themselves. Candy would not explain the rather dark inspiration behind the show until after it was completed. We laughed a lot as the men learned the words to the Justin Bieber song. That song is still tattooed into my music memory.

Back stage on the night we all gathered around as Candy helped the men get into character. You are doing this because you need the money so your kids don’t starve. Candy tells them. You are not doing this for fun, its a eat or don’t eat situation.

I think that this was the most nervous about a performance I had ever been. I did not want to let Candy and Victoria down. I wanted to be brilliant. Anything less is unacceptable to me.

I walk on stage to applause after Candy introduces me. The stage lights hot and the microphone in my hand. I walk to the centre of the stage and stare out at the crowd of enthusiastic Fringe Festival participants and punters.

I take a deep breath and begin with some banter and jokes about how all white men look the same to me. I have slept with many men and received pleasure from some of them. I dead pan. Tonight’s festivities involve the judgement of 12 attractive and affable objects of desireWe have three judges who will chose the object they deem most desirable. These lucky objects will be given a sash and five whole dollars. And now it is my pleasure to introduce you to our Objects Of Desire.

The men enter the stage one at a time and do their choreographed dance. When they are all standing on stage I introduce them one at a time. Each object steps forward as I introduce them and then goes back to their original place in the line of Objects of desire.

HARD PACK: Hard cannot remember how he got his name. He loves playing Bandminton and has very fluid wrist action. He dislikes injustice.

STEEL: is a landscape gardener. His fav flower is the simple Daisy. He dislikes spiders.

MERCURY: Likes to read. But, don’t you worry. He is no know it all. He likes housework even more. He dislikes bees.

BRAZEN: Loves sunny afternoon walks in nature. He is a mad keen rock climber. He dislikes that he cannot take his pet blue tongue lizard, Mercutio on his rock climbing adventures.

SILVER: Enjoys baking cakes. Dislikes the clean up.

QUARTZE: Loves chocolate. Dislikes calories.

REVOLVER: Loves his mother. They are very close. Dislikes animal cruelty.

SPIKE: Enjoys fixing up vintage dirt bikes. Dislikes mud.

IRON: likes doing puzzles. Scared of moths.

ODEN: Enjoys getting facials. Is the proud father of three cats. Dislikes it when his cat babies get unwell.

ROCK: Not THE Rock, but, still bloody good looking. Am I right? He enjoys lifting weights and taking his pet pug, Paul for a walk. He dislikes peas.

METAL: Likes running marathons. Dislikes climate change.

After the introductions the sing along portion began. Each object of desire took turns coming up to the one microphone and singing their portion of Baby by Justin Bieber.

Once the winners were announced and all the hooting and whistling and deafening applause had died down, Candy explained briefly what had inspired the live art performance. Then it was a brief intermission before the second part of the show. I was buzzing as I went to get my free drink. The rest of the show was fantastic and i was able to enjoy it whole heartedly.

]]>https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/the-male-gaze-is-turned-on-its-head-and-it-is-cathartic-as-all-hell/feed/021616003_10155804123211289_7672636054209382696_ngremlinface21730947_972002889606894_7723209075346192538_n21686053_10155804121966289_9109947165651109286_n21686411_10155804133731289_5311029429141620209_n21752035_973183449488838_2785168615811299781_nGetting Your Photo Taken can be a rebellion Against Your never ending Insecurities.https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/getting-your-photo-taken-can-be-a-rebellion-against-your-never-ending-insecurities/
https://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/getting-your-photo-taken-can-be-a-rebellion-against-your-never-ending-insecurities/#respondMon, 28 Aug 2017 06:58:08 +0000http://gremlinface82.wordpress.com/?p=4548]]>There seems to be a loose thread to this week and that thread is me being photographed. I want so badly to feel comfortable with getting my photo taken. I do not want to have inherited my mothers absolute terror of being photographed. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. It is something that takes practice.It is an evolving process that never really ends. Do I love my body? Not always. Is that the end of the world? sometimes. Sometimes I can go for days feeling ugly and gross and pick at all my deformities in an absurd and grotesque mental exorcise that I revel in. I go through the mental list of all the things wrong with my body that have nothing to do with fat or skinny. I grew up wishing that I had a bigger body. If I was fatter, it would help hide my deformed spine and rounded shoulders, I used to think. I used to feel so jealous and the green poison would overtake my ability to empathise. I wish my only problem was being a bit fat, I used to think as I listened to the girls in my class at school talk about how anorexic I looked and how big I made them feel. I was not allowed to speak of my concerns for myself. I knew that if I said anything about my deformed spine they would all agree. They would not react like they did when a friend commented on their weight hatefully ”No way. You are beautiful!” My self image was not subjective it was fact and the people in my year 8 class all understood this.

The fact was I wanted to scream sometimes at the girls in my class ”TAKE MY DEFORMED SKINNY MEAT SACK AND i WILL GLADY TRADE YOU FOR YOUR PERFECT SPINE IN A CHUBBY BODY THAT DOESNT GET PUT UNDER DOCTORS EYES ALL THE FUCKING TIME.” I was yet to learn about what skinny white girl privilege is and that I did and do have it. Its just proof that being skinny does not mean you are healthy. It is a big lie that people use to fat shame people who are perfectly healthy and just not super skinny. Marketing lies to us all. But especially if you are a woman of colour, a woman with a disability, a queer woman or trans woman or a woman with a chronic illness.

I was young and self loathing and unable to understand that so was every other girl in my class. It was not an either or game. I was yet to learn that no matter how perfect your spine is there is a whole system put in place to make money from women hating how they look. Everyday is a day of reckoning with the system. It was just that when you have a non normative body there are less people to talk to about your particular concerns and insecurities. I spent so many lunch times and recesses simply walking around around my small country school all by myself struggling with self loathing and no friendship group to help me out. I grew strong this way. I grew self reliant.

But what I ate was a constant source of interest to my relatives and grandparents. What I ate was observed and catalogued to a list that was shared with my mother at any opportunity. If my mother left me with a grandparent for any amount of time, that time would be measured by what I ate and then told to my mother when she came to take me home again. For me food was something I struggled with because I was fussy and disinterested in it. My grandmother my mother’s mother said it was karma. My mother had been a terrible eater all her life as well in that she was fussy. My mother never told me about this. It was my grandmother who told me my mother practically lived on vegemite sandwiches.

I found that there was power to be gained back by not eating. It was this that caught my doctors at The Royal Children’s Hospital’s attention and is what made them admit me to the Adolescent ward when I was 15 and hating myself the most. That is a personal essay all its own. I will write it I promise. Just not now.

In primary school there were rumours about me. There was the story that I was blue when I was borne. That was why I was so stunted in development. A girl in my class told me this at playtime with such authority that I believed her for a second. I could not remember my birth so maybe this story was true? Perhaps this girl had a mother who was a nurse at the hospital in Shepparton where I was born. My parents and I only lived in Shepparton for the first six months of my life so having this girl tell me this at East Loddon P-12 in Dingee was strange. My mother soon sorted out my confusion. ”You were not blue when you were born.” She said ”You were my biggest baby. Things just got a bit complicated after the initial weigh in.” There was the other rumour that I had died as well. It is safe to say that I was quite a creative inspiration to my prep and grade 1 class mates.

When my photographer friend put the call out for a model I decided to jump at it. There was a pair of free very cute socks up for grabs and the opportunity to see a friend I had not seen in a while. She and I are ‘sausage sisters’ and the bond is strong. We meet up after my morning events that I wanted to attend as part of The Melbourne Writers Festival taking hold of Melbourne right now. It was a particularly cold Melbourne day that had already gone through many faces: cold winds, hail, heavy cloud and brief sunshine. It was one of my not eating days. I am not hungry for breakfast and then lunch comes around and coffee with half an almond croissant seems enough. I know I should eat something but the events are too close together and ACMI cafe is very busy.

My friend and I decide to get a drink first so we can catch up. We go to Beer delux and join the line. As I am getting out my wallet my little Sunday section of my weekly pill organizer seems to jump out of my bag and crash to the floor. I am embarrassed for a second and then shake it off. ”OH No.” I exclaim with glee. ”My drugs!” There is a bearded man in front of us in the line. My scene grabs his attention. H looks at me with interest. I catch his eye. ”Not illicit drugs.” I explain. ”They are to keep my Dad’s kidney from waking up and freaking out at being in a different female body.” My friend looks impressed. This bearded man starts explaining the biology of my anti rejection tablets and what they do. I get miffed and cut him off. ”Excuse me. Have you had a kidney transplant?” ”No.” he says. ”Then stop mansplaining my condition.”

”Im a surgeon.” He says affably and with no malice or self importance. My friend and I start laughing. ”I am so sorry.” I say. And then. ”Wait, what kind of surgeon?” I ask. ”Nothing life changing.” He says. ”Just knees and joints and shit like that.”

The sun comes out while we are talking and we can feel it on our backs as we chat. He tells us that his wife is head trauma consultant at a hospital in Sydney. Her area is bullet wounds. ”At the end of they day she has saved like six lives and I have helped a footballer walk a bit better.” He tells us with such pride and admiration for his wife that I am completely charmed by him. I am still thinking fondly of him as I sit and type this over 24 hours later.

My friend and I chat over a white wine each that goes straight to my head and we laugh and giggle like a couple of care free kids. It has been at least a year since we saw each other and in person and the time seems totally inconsequential. She gives me a pair of the socks that will be worn by me for the photo shoot. A pair of the very cool and perfectly fitting Lorna socks by Moosh Walks Socks https://mooshwalks.com/

I can never say no to the colour combination of black and red. Once I have changed into the socks the photography begins.